You are here

Home » Discover the War Heritage Institute during the national holiday! Focus on 1917!

Discover the War Heritage Institute during the national holiday! Focus on 1917!

The WHI stand in Brussels Park tells the story of the Great War through several subjects: www.beCarto14-18.be, an app about Belgian military heritage, an exhibition on the first world conflict, the War Graves Service and the Defence Demining Service.

Moreover, come and admire original collection items and replicas linked to the Great War in the Flemish trenches or at the front in imperial Russia.

Also on display : two dog-drawn carts with machineguns, the replica of a Mors Minerva self-propelled gun used at the Russian front, a 75 mm Krupp gun used by Belgian field artillery and a Ford model T ambulance from 1917. The French army is represented through a light Renault FT tank, model 1917, the first to possesses modern characteristics.

Children aged 8 to 16 can enjoy a peacekeepers game, enabling them to experience the life of a soldier on foreign mission. On the program : demining exercises, climbing wall, camouflage, etc. There are prizes to be won : a helicopter flight or an initiation day at the para-commandos.

To valorise Belgian military heritage and to remember armed conflicts on Belgian soil or in which Belgians have participated abroad: those are the War Heritage Institute’s missions. The WHI also manages a unique network of military museums and sites. We can think of the Royal Military Museum in Brussels, the Trench of Death in Dixmude, Fort Breendonk, Bastogne Barracks, the Kemmel Cold War command bunker or the Gunfire museum in Brasschaat.